Lest my last post make anyone think that I really have it all together, I’ll be really open about the fact that I had to beg my mom to come up again for a week and help me bring order to chaos. So she trained up on Sunday to hang out with us for the week! So far, she’s scoured the sink, cleaned the bathrooms, vacuumed the whole house, fixed our dryer, and helped me pick out living room curtains and finish unpacking. Whew! Talk about a working vacation! I’ve showered and had a quiet time every morning, run several errands without Tommy, and gotten ahead on class prep. Our house is finally looking liveable. I’m so grateful for a mom who is willing to drop everything at home to help her adult kids when we need it (nursing John through eye surgery, helping us move, and, well, Peter’s currently at home, so he benefits from her homemaking everyday!). I certainly have a Proverbs 31 model constantly before me.
Tommy loves having Grandma here, too! Don’t they look like they’re having fun?
I think my cold got to me more than I realized this weekend, because I got home and discovered that I had exactly one picture from homecoming: Sarah and Tommy and I hanging out at the Gathering! (Wow, you can tell that I was sleep-deprived. Oh well.) Let me run down all we did, just to make you Hillsdalians who didn’t come wish that you had:
We agree with Lewis–the best books for Tommy to read are the books that we don’t mind reading again and again. They’re the books that we remember loving from our childhood and that don’t disappoint us when we find them in a used bookstore as adults. I had not encountered Ezra Jack Keats beyond his delightful The Snowy Day. What fun to discover his others! We’re getting Tommy Peter’s Chair whenever he gets a baby sister. Peter’s reactions to his new baby sister are priceless, and we know that Tommy will relate. 
So I ended last week trying to think of the positives, and this week started off on the opposite note. Tommy woke up early Monday, ready to get up and make mischief. First casualty? The baking soda box I keep on his changing table to sprinkle in his diaper pail (for odors). Apparently baking soda tastes really good to toddlers, judging from the finger marks that were made in the 20 seconds I took to run and get my camera. Yum!
Tommy has also decided that he likes playing in his pack-n-play. We haven’t tried to use it as a playpen since he was about 5 months old, but I’ve discovered that if I throw almost all his toys in there, he’ll actually stand outside it and try to climb in. (Or cry, “Up! Up!” until I put him in.) My readers may notice a direct correlation between Tommy’s affinity for the pack-n-play and the increased number of my blog posts and answered emails…it’s true! I hate using the computer when he’s up and around–it invariably ends in having to put an entire roll of toilet paper back on the roll or gathering up scattered diapers or something worse. With Tommy happily contained, I’ve been able to steal ten minutes here and there for my class prep, blogging, or getting my inbox back under control after a month of neglect. I even have half of next week’s lecture (Dueling, Gambling, and other Regency Vices)* done already! Yay!
